BA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This thesis project explores the history of human trafficking through credible research and the use of primary and secondary sources in an interactive, website and podcast format. The focus is limited to the twentieth century (1900s) primarily within the United States, with discussions of international legislation. The website contains multimedia and four main sections of content to emphasize the importance and relevance of digital history and interactive research.​ Human trafficking has existed in many forms throughout history as slavery, human bondage, sexual exploitation, etc. The 20th-century issue facing millions today has only been recently studied and documented, but much work remains to be done. Reviewing U.S. and international legal documentation of human trafficking through primary sources and previous definitions is helpful but not sufficient enough to properly trace the history of human trafficking and its societal impact. The historical record of human trafficking is short under its current name but stems thousands of years through its previous aliases and related crimes. The absence of appropriate definition use and clear understanding of the issue has previously contributed to a need for additional human trafficking research and study. Therefore, without definitive knowledge of its history within the twentieth century, particularly in the United States, professionals and the general public alike will face obstacles of foundational knowledge and competency when studying and combating human trafficking as a human right and social and criminal issue in the present.

Committee: Leslie Heaphy (Advisor); Erin Hollenbaugh (Committee Member); James Seelye (Committee Member); Amy Miracle (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; History; International Law; Legal Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, History of Art

Above all others in Renaissance Italy, the painters of sixteenth-century Venice were renowned for their depictions of the eroticized female nude. Indeed, the sensually painted flesh of these figures, as seen in Titian's famous Venus of Urbino, still beckon the modern beholder's gaze and activate a desire to touch. Most scholars of art history have largely agreed that the Italian Renaissance nude figure served as a status symbol for elite men to collect and salaciously enjoy in private. While I concur that many of these paintings were produced for the delectation of the male gaze, my dissertation proposes that certain depictions of the nude, especially those from late Renaissance Venice, also constituted a response to women's rising influence in early modern society. Furthermore, these paintings depict not only nude women, but also nude men, in compositions and situations that speak to period anxieties over what we now refer to as gender politics. In the mid-sixteenth century, artists of the Veneto began to more frequently paint the ancient gods, goddesses, and heroes of their secular compositions performing illicit sexual acts that were, to contemporary Venetians' eyes, immoral and/or illegal. More specifically, these depictions of the nude, which were often anachronistically painted in contemporary Venetian surroundings, mirrored the city's own inhabitants acting out improper sex acts such as adultery, rape, and prostitution. In closely examining four examples of this phenomena from circa 1550–1610, my dissertation project demonstrates how these works of art would have provoked unease in the eyes of contemporary Venetian viewers, especially affluent males. In illustrating these scenes of social disorder, I argue that painters of late-sixteenth-century Venice ultimately exposed as well as prompted men's fears of losing sexual and societal control over to women.

Committee: Christian Kleinbub (Advisor); Byron Hamann (Committee Member); Andrew Shelton (Committee Member); Karl Whittington (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History; Gender Studies; History; Literature; Womens Studies

Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing​, University of Findlay, 2019, English

Findlay, Ohio's nineteenth-century newspapers published crime reports, legislative actions, and opinion pieces about prostitution within the city. Victorian ideology was inherently rigid and imbalanced between men and women, which is why nonconforming sexual activity, specifically sex for sale, represents a rhetorically significant phenomenon. When considering Findlay's historical and contemporary reputation as a politically conservative and traditional family-focused municipality, the newspaper articles show that some residents resisted gendered behavioral standards that city leaders sought to uphold during its most socioeconomically formative years. This thesis critically looks at previously unstudied, male-authored Victorian prostitution articles to determine how journalists ideologically situated and represented the female-centric trade within the community. The project also identifies new information that reflects the women's rhetorical presence. This paper argues that, despite the phallocentric nature of the newspaper articles, prostitutes' voices can still be “heard” and recognized for their rhetorical contributions, thereby encouraging historical revisioning.

Committee: Christine Denecker (Committee Chair); Sarah Fedirka (Committee Member); Diana Montague (Committee Member); Christine Tulley (Advisor) Subjects: American History; Communication; Cultural Anthropology; Gender Studies; Journalism; Rhetoric; Womens Studies

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2016, History

M*A*S*H is an iconic, eleven season (1972-1983), American television series that was produced on the tail end of the Vietnam War during a period of upheaval for the American public. Set in Korea during the Korean War, M*A*S*H was a satire on the war in Vietnam. As a result, M*A*S*H presents numerous Asian (Korean) characters throughout the series, but often in limited, stereotypical roles. Despite producing America's most watched final season episode; "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen," and being granted several Emmy nominations and awards, M*A*S*H has all but evaded lengthy academic study. This thesis primarily uses newspapers, both local and national, to understand how Asian stereotypes are presented in M*A*S*H with relationship to American society. Through the analysis of seven Asian-centered character roles, including; farmer/villager, houseboy/housekeeper, prostitute, war bride, peddler/hustler, orphan, and enemy, I explore the foundations of these stereotypes as well as how they were being utilized to reassure Americans of their own communal, Cold War, beliefs in a time of distress. I explore how these roles change and adapt over the course of the series and what may be motivating these changes, such as the Asian-American, Civil Rights and women's rights movements, and changing Cold War ideologies and objectives.

Committee: Michael Brooks Dr. (Advisor); Kristen Rudisill Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Asian American Studies; Asian Studies; Folklore; Mass Communications; Military History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, History

This study explores the White Slave Traffic Act of 1910, commonly known as the Mann Act, a federal law that outlawed taking woman or girl over state lines for the purposes of prostitution, debauchery, or “any other immoral purpose.” It traces the international origins of the anti-white slavery movement; looks at the anti-slavery origins and rhetoric of the anti-white slavery movement; and contextualizes the American anti-white slavery movement in a broader context of American colonial and racial politics. It then examines the Immigration Bureau's experiments and investigations into white slavery, conceived by the bureau as foreign prostitution, to show how the Immigration Bureau agitated for greater border controls throughout the United States. At the center of this dissertation is the Bureau of Investigation's enforcement of the White Slave Trafficking Act. Throughout the 1910s bureau agents struggled with how to enforce the statute: was it a law intended to protect young women from nonwhite men or police young women who in the changing sexual culture were increasingly experimenting with sexuality? In the course of the decade, the bureau experimented with ways to expand its reach while trying to contain prostitutes by tracking prostitutes who crossed state lines. When in 1917 the Supreme Court granted a broad reading to the Mann Act, upholding the “any other immoral purpose” clause of the law to cover cases of interstate romantic trysts, the bureau expanded the types of cases it pursued. With the U.S.'s entry into the World War, promiscuity posed a threat to the health and American soldiers who suffered from high rates of venereal disease. As a result, wartime America saw a criminalization of promiscuity that encouraged the harsh policing of young women under the martial rationale of protecting America's fighting force. Cases during the interwar period show the way the bureau upheld male patriarchal and white racial privileges in cases that dealt with both interper (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Susan Hartmann PhD (Advisor); Kevin Boyle PhD (Committee Member); Paula Baker PhD (Committee Member); Anthony Mughan PhD (Other) Subjects: African Americans; American History; American Studies; Black History; Criminology; Gender; History; Womens Studies